Kiso smiled, a sincere warmth laced within it, “I already told you. You have to live on in order to repay the wrongs you’ve committed, your my informant, don’t think I’ll let you die so easily.”

Chapter Thirty Three -

Yan continued to shake her head.

"No.. I don't deserve to live.." She repeated herself.

Kiso's warm smile fell slightly, his brows clenching together. "This girl..." He thought to himself, growing slightly frustrated.

Yuansing's long slender body suddenly materialized, coiling around Kiso.

"If I may, I have a suggestion?" His deep ancient voice startled Yan, whose pathetic sobs ceased immediately.

Kiso raised an eyebrow in wonder but still introduced Yuansing to Yan.

"..An Electric Sky Eel???" Yan's soft voice still contained a good amount of grief, yet her reverence was evident.

Yuansing nodded his oily black head, "Indeed. Human girl, although I don't have much say regarding your feelings, I can somewhat understand your current state of mind. You obviously despise yourself and what you've done, yet there is no changing what has already happened. You probably feel there is no punishment great enough to suit your misdeeds.

However, Kiso is correct, death is simply the easy way out.

I suggest you enter a slave contract with Kiso. There are only benefits for the both of you. With myself as the medium, I can create a master-slave contract between the two of you which will completely change the nature of Yan's core into that of Kiso's. Afterwards, Yan, you will be required to heed the orders of Kiso without fail. Even if you wanted to betray him, you would be physically unable to.

What do you say? Yan gets to rid herself of her hated death nature and Kiso gets a cute little slave. Pretty good right?"

Kiso blinked a few times, frowning, he didn't want Yan to become his slave.

But before he could open his mouth to protest, Yan forced her weak legs up and lowered her body into a deep bow.

"Master Kiso... Please... I can only beg this of you, there really is no other way for me to go on." Yan's voice was completely resolute. From her voice alone, Kiso could understand how much this meant to her.

Sighing, Kiso waved his hand saying, "Alright, make it so. But Yan, I want you to understand that although you may be my "slave", I cannot promise to treat you like one.."

Yan's pretty face rose up, trying her best to smile warmly.

Yuansing nodded, then muttered something under his breath as a strong wave of spiritual pressure rushed through Kiso and Yan's bodies simultaneously. A thin golden string of lightning started to form between them, which caused Yan's face to visibly turn white.

She had already been pale from her lack of nutrition, adding the forced transformation of her core, she looked as white as a lily petal.

A thick black smoke continuously seeped from her body, floating up towards the ceiling before disappearing.

After several minutes, the black smoke gradually thinned before completely disappearing, then Yan lost consciousness.

Staggering forward, Kiso barely caught Yan before she fell face first. Catching her falling body, Kiso realized that little ceremony took a large toll on himself and he plummeted to the ground with Yan, also loosing consciousness.

Slowly opening his eyes, Kiso first noticed Yuansing's oily yellow eyes staring back at him.

"Ah!" Kiso noticed Yan's body pressed neatly against his own.

He promptly lifted her off himself and glared at Yuansing, asking, "Just what was the ceremony all about? Why did it exhaust so much of my spiritual pressure?"

Yuansing chuckled, "The master-slave contract transports the master's spiritual pressure into the slave's, completely replacing the slave's previous spiritual pressure nature.

Strange though, although you have fused your heat and darkness natures and they were both transported, she could only hold onto the heat energy. With her previous third stage spiritual pressure, it shouldn't have exhausted you so much, I really don't know what happened there."

Kiso shook his head, glancing down at Yan's peaceful looking face, thinking to himself, "Whatever, I think Yan will be happier like this..."

A strange thought followed up, "I wonder why I feel so attached to Yan... I've barely interacted with her, yet I'm going to such lengths to make her happy... Ahh, I guess it's probably just her face, she really is too cute."

As Kiso was thinking to himself, Yan's body moved and she slowly sat up, rubbing her eyes. Looking at the cell around her and Kiso's strange expression, the previous events rushed back into her brain.

Delighted, she cleared her throat to grab Kiso's attention then kowtowed, "Master Kiso, Yan thanks you for accepting such a miserable person as myself. I promise to serve you the rest of my life! My body and soul are yours to command!"

Kiso rolled his eyes, lowering himself to lift her up. "This girl.."

Yuansing's voice interrupted Yan's happy moment, "Kiso, have this girl go fetch Princess Yuni, there's something else we must do before it's too late."

Kiso took a deep breath, "There's still more?" He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, this Yuansing is just full of surprises. "Alright, Yan, go get Yuni..."

Yan nodded quickly, stretching her worn out body before opening the cell door and walking out.

"I thought she locked it?" Kiso was puzzled by Yan's actions. He wondered if her entire scene was just to rope herself in with him further. "Nah..Can't be."

Yuansing listened as Yan's footsteps gradually faded into the distance, then turned to Kiso and cleared his throat.

"Kiso." He made sure Kiso was listening, the tone of his voice carried the importance of what he was about to say.

Sensing his intentions, Kiso focused his mind, "What is it?"

Yuansing thought to himself for a few seconds, seemingly arranging what he needed to say, then spoke, "Pay attention. Although my being is attached to your core, now that I've truly awakened, this is only temporary. If you wish to keep me around and continue a relationship with me, we must also form a contract.

Not just some petty contract like the one you just formed with Yan either.

A contract between a spiritual beast and human requires several difficult components. The most difficult is still the mutual consent between the two parties though. Not only must the human and spiritual beast be on good terms, they must both understand that once the contract is formed, it is for life.

Our lives will be tied together.

My lifespan becomes yours and vice versa. If you die, I die. If I die, you die.

Also, there are two different types of contracts.

One fuses myself into your core and bestows a physical portion of my power to you for your use.

Let me say now that this is the contract I desire. Although I will be unable to materialize, I will experience the world through your eyes. I will still retain my consciousness and will be able to communicate accordingly. This also prevents that pesky third ranked eagle from hunting me...

Anyway, the other is rather simple. I materialize permanently and we're forced to stay within one mile of each other or else we both die.

What do you think?"

Kiso thinks for a moment, then asks, "If we don't form a contract, what happens?"

Yuansing responds with a slight grunt, "Hmph. Then all these years will have been for nothing and I'll be forced to return home. I'll be sent out again and start the whole process all over again."

"Then we'll go with the first contract, it will be like returning to how we were before anyway." Kiso makes up his mind quickly and smiles at Yuansing.

His words clearly excited Yuansing. In the next moment, Yuansing's body blurred as it fused into Kiso's.

Kiso only felt a searing hot pain before he passed out once again.

-----

"Kiso...Kiso!...KISO!!!" A deep voice rings in Kiso's mind, forcing him to regain consciousness.

Glaring up at the ceiling of the dimly lit stone cell, Kiso recalled Yuansing's actions.

"Good. You're awake. How does it feel?" Yuansing's voice buzzed in Kiso's mind.

Kiso sat up and looked down at his hand. A pitch black scaly looking hilt is in his hand.

"Feels like a snake..." Kiso's voice carries a hint of sarcasm.

"Not the hilt, your core. How is it?" Yuansing probes Kiso for a response. Clearly Yuansing is no longer able to sense Kiso's core.

Noticing Yuansing's strange question, Kiso folded his legs and used his inner eye to observe his core. The next moment, Kiso's eyes shot open, unable to remain closed.

"What the?" Kiso took several moments, then closed his eyes again to confirm what he just saw.

Unexpectedly, Kiso's former core which contained a vortex of darkness energy containing countless small lightning bolts, had completely changed. In the place of that wild vortex, a single black egg floated motionlessly.

"There's just an egg.. What the fuck? What happened to my.." As Kiso started to wonder what happened to his spiritual pressure, he attempted to use his spiritual pressure to cast forth a bolt of lightning. As he gathered the spiritual pressure, that black egg hummed slightly, releasing massive amounts of energy.

A massive golden bolt of lightning appeared for a moment, before it transformed back into the pitch black color Kiso was used to.

Followed Kiso's display, Yuansing's excited voice echoed again, "Perfect! You actually jumped to the sixth stage! You even inherited my pure golden lightning! Remarkable, there is actually such a lucky human in this world... Oh right! Send some spiritual pressure into that hilt, that's the physical manifestation of my power. I reckon it will become a powerful weapon for you."

As Kiso was still looking around inside his body at all the new changes involved with becoming an immortal, he heard Yuansing's words and looked down at the scaly black hilt.

"Alright then.. Here goes.." Kiso urged spiritual pressure into the hand holding the hilt. Strangely, the hilt seemed to be part of his body. When the spiritual pressure traveled into his hand, it easily continued on into the hilt without being released into the air.

From the tip of the hilt, a pure golden light began to spread out.

One meter. Two meters. Five meters.

When the light stretched out five meters, a violent fluctuation occurred. The hilt trembled in Kiso's hands and the golden light once again turned black, flickering intensely.

"A whip?" Kiso looked at the snaking black lightning coming from the hilt. Whenever Kiso moved his hand, the black lightning followed, precisely a whip.

"Ahh, it's actually a whip!" Kiso's eyes widened and he could truly be said to be extremely excited. Kiso longed for a flashy weapon that suited his techniques. He never even considered a whip, but now that it was in his hand it felt extremely proper.

Yuansing's voice mirrored his excitement, "Good. Good. This weapon suits you very well!"

Kiso flicked the whip around, striking the walls of the cell. Whenever the whip made contact with the solid stone, it caused the stone to burst into dust.

After several tens of minutes of Kiso playing with his new weapon, the sounds of footsteps could be heard approaching.

Kiso stopped lashing the whip around and turned to face the corridor, which led away from what was left of the prison cell.

When the silhouettes of two tender young women came into view, Kiso only heard a loud gasp. Yuni came running forward as she exclaimed, "Kiso! That whip! It's.... So awesome! Where did you get it?!"

Yuni heard from Yan about the master-slave contract and she originally planned to scold Kiso for agreeing to such a thing. However, the moment she caught site of the black lightning whip and the sorry state of the stone cell around him, those thoughts faded away. Replacing them was immense curiosity and even a little jealousy.

"Yuansing and I formed a contract Yuni. This whip is a physical manifestation of his power." Kiso puffed up his chest a little and dangled the whip in front of her.

The recent development regarding Yuni's crazy lucky background left Kiso a little jealous himself. This was his revenge.

Yuni pursed her lips and folded her arms. Although she seemed like a stubborn little child, her actions were on the contrary extremely cute. Kiso couldn't help but laugh.

Yuansing cleared his throat in Kiso's mind, reminding him, "Kiso, remember? There's one more thing I need you to tell Yuni for me. She's probably rather curious about the spiritual beast blood inside of her. After all, Prismatic Moon Moths generally directly enter the ninth stage after maturing."

Yuansing gave Kiso the rundown on Yuni's situation.

Kiso's silence caught Yuni's attention as she opened a single eye, glancing at him sideways.

Yuni realized how she must look to the others and looked around sheepishly while feeling rather embarrassed about her childish pouting. "Oh well, I'll just have to get one too..."

As she thought to this point, she noticed Kiso nod to himself, then he looked into her eyes and said, "Yuni, Yuansing wanted me to tell you one more thing. Although you've inherited the blood of your mother, a Prismatic Moon Moth, you are still mostly human. You will likely have to cultivate on your own until the ninth stage of spiritual pressure before you gain access to any of the knowledge regarding your innate abilities. Your prismatic lightning is really the only physical evidence that you contain your mother's blood. At least to us humans, or so he says..."

A question was clearly answered by this explanation and Yuni's eyes shone an excited luster.

Just as Yuni was about to thank Yuansing through Kiso, the sound of several hurried footsteps could be heard getting closer.

When the owners of these footsteps came into view, Kiso, Yuni, and Yan started wide-eyed.

Three academy teachers, with pale faces and bloodied robes, hurriedly approached Kiso. They kowtowed immediately and one of them cried out with his face still plastered to the stone floor, "Young master Kiso! You must stop them!"

To Be Continued!

Hey guys, we're nearing the end of "book 1"..

I know a lot of you have been waiting for something that happens in this chapter. Tell me what you think!

Also, I haven't really said it very much, if at all, to this point... But, if you see a glaring error in the grammar, please bug me to change it! (I will!)